Richard Hermann: No cuts for big-spending Defense

If you think Republicans and Democrats are serious about spending cuts, take a close look at the defense budget passed this month by the House of Representatives

Richard Hermann

If you think Republicans and Democrats are serious about spending cuts, take a close look at the defense budget passed this month by the House of Representatives. A majority of members of both parties voted to increase defense spending by $17 billion for the coming fiscal year.

Increasing the bloat at the Pentagon is both outrageous and delusional. In my five and a half years in the military, followed by three years as a lawyer at the Pentagon and several more as a legal consultant to the Defense Department (DoD), I saw more waste of money and reckless spending than I could have conjured up in my worst nightmares. Examples (large and small) included:

• A $5-plus billion weapons contract for a cannon with a firing range less than that of the Soviet helicopter gunships it was supposed to neutralize.

• A multi-billion dollar armored personnel carrier designed to carry an Army squad of six soldiers that was downsized to the point where one squad member was supposed to run alongside because there was no room for him in the vehicle. Mercifully, both of these programs were canceled, but not before more than $10 billion was wasted.

• A senior official whose sole function was to update a 5-page regulation every three years.

• A group of public affairs officials whose responsibilities were so light that they spent most of every day in the Pentagon library reading newspapers and magazines when they were not sleeping.

• A very senior DoD civilian who used the sophisticated, high-tech facilities of the Armed Forces Radio and TV Service to cut his own audio and videotapes for commercial sale to the born-again Christian community. The late, great investigative reporter Jack Anderson, “outed” this individual in his nationally syndicated columns several times, yet this crook was able to keep his job and continue his illegal activities.

• Entire service bureaucracies whose sole job was to keep tabs on what rival services were asking for in their budgets and preparing arguments to counter them and get more money for themselves.

You get the picture. And that was only the tip of the waste and mismanagement iceberg.

This stuff not only continues today, but has gotten worse. When I was at the Pentagon, the aggregate number of deputy secretaries, under-secretaries and assistant secretaries of Defense and equivalent positions was 10. Today: 42. While it is difficult to determine the actual number of generals and admirals, the best evidence is that today’s 1.4 million-strong military sustains more than 700, compared to 2,000 that led more than 12 million soldiers and sailors in World War II.

In addition, Congress keeps giving DoD more than even it requests every year so that members can pander to their home states and districts and get re-elected. You and I pay for this rampant excess. Moreover, we are still building and maintaining obsolete weapons systems designed to fight major wars against nation states when the threats to our security come from non-state actors such as terrorist groups. Finally, defense contracting fraud is a thriving business strategy for some companies that goes largely undetected because the people assigned to investigate it do not want to jeopardize future job offers from “Beltway Bandit” defense contractors when they retire.

The conclusion: Congress — and to a considerable extent the administration — are just lip-synching about serious spending cuts. There is no real there there.